The ability to safely and efficiently collect female urine has been a continued goal of various industries such as medical, camping, and recreation.
Historically, medical urine collection has been carried out by manually inserting a sterile sample cup into a urine stream for a small period of time. The manual insertion of a sample cup into a urine stream creates a potential for contamination by the urine touching the hand on its way to the sample cup. Likewise, manual insertion of the sample cup into a urine stream often results in lost urine due to the lack of a convenient line of sight for females. The integrity of the urine sample is further endangered when a user gets urine on the outside of the sample cup that must be absorbed by a potentially non-sterile material by a medical technician. The ability to efficiently collect urine without getting fluid on the outside of the sample cup greatly increases the chances of the sample having the proper integrity. Similarly, efficient collection of a urine sample without the possibility of getting fluid on the outside of the sample cup greatly decreases the time required to collect the sample as well as the time the sample will be uncovered in the cup.
In addition, the efficient and safe collection of urine has been an issue for the camping and recreation industries because of the inability for females to conveniently supervise the urination process. At times when plumbing is not available such as on a boat or camping, females often cannot conveniently control urination. Thus, an apparatus that allows a female to isolate their urine stream into a specified location without having to squat close to the ground will greatly increase the efficiency and safety of urinating without plumbing.
Many attempts have been made to provide a urine collection appliance to collect urine samples including U.S. Design Pat. No. D456,898 and U.S. Patent Application No. 2002/0179794. However, none of the disclosed appliances provide an efficient and safe method of collecting a sample with minimal possibility of sample contamination. The U.S. Design Pat. No. D456,898 discloses a sample cup holder that connects to a toilet stool. However, this design does not account for the variations in user size as well as the lack of efficient line of sight to supervise the filling of the cup. While the design takes the user's hand out of the process, the appliance remains inefficient with a high potential for sample contamination. Moreover, U.S. Patent Application No. 2002/0179794 is an adjustable sample cup holder connectable to a toilet stool. The adjustability of the disclosed appliance allows for a variety of positions for the sample cup, however, the user is required to awkwardly find a line of sight to ensure the cup is filled with the proper amount of urine. Therefore, attempts have been made to make the collection of a urine sample more efficient and safe, but have failed to provide an appliance that allows the user a time efficient sterile process.
Furthermore, the requirement that both references have a toilet stool to hold a sample cup is evidence of their ineffectiveness in locations that do not have plumbing. Areas such as campgrounds and boats often lack the required toilet stool which makes the cited references inefficient.
Accordingly, there is a continuing need for improved appliances to collect urine.